“It’s no more sustainable than smashing
up kauri forest to catch kiwi.”

The letters, which took
months to be released to Forest & Bird under the Official
Information Act, show persistent efforts by the High Seas
Group, of which Talley’s is a member, to block a new rule
limiting the destructive impact of bottom trawling in the
South Pacific.

In the letters, the High Seas Group
threatens legal action against the Government if they
didn’t get their way.

The letters were sent to Fisheries
Minister Stuart Nash, and NZ First Ministers Winston Peters,
and Shane Jones.

“The fishing industry spends big bucks
on ads insisting we should trust them, but at the very same
time, they were trying to prevent protection of the South
Pacific’s most fragile ocean floor ecosystems by
threatening our Government.”

The High Seas Group of
companies was opposing a ‘move on’ rule (pdf, pg 29), which
would require bottom trawlers to stop fishing in an area and
move on, if they pull up too many corals, sponges, and other
vulnerable and long-lived ocean life.

The Group
failed in its bid to block the rule after other South
Pacific countries refused to cave to its demands, and the
move-on rule came into effect in April.

“New Zealand
bottom trawlers, including Talley’s, fought against an
extremely modest rule which allows a maximum coral by-catch
of 250 kg. It is hard to see how they have any interest in
sustainable fishing, when they fight so hard to continue an
activity known to completely trash our ocean floor,” says
Mr Hague.

The rule has been implemented by the South Pacific
Regional Fisheries Management Organisation (SPRFMO), and
covers a huge area of the high seas from South
Australia and North of Papua New Guinea in the west across
to South America in the East and from the equator to near
Antarctica.

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